


The Boy In The Boat

by PlaidAdder



Series: Missing Pages [11]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Guns, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Johnlock eventually, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Sexual Content, Story: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Story: The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-07 02:43:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: Everyone knows that Mary Morstan is the kindest  and most beautiful woman in England. It is a secret known only to you and myself, diary, that she is also one of the sauciest.*****This takes place, chronologically, after "Whatever Remains" but BEFORE "Five Dirty Minutes in the Dark." Violet Hunter, Mary Morstan, and Doctor Watson are about to set sail in search of Holmes. Nobody's entirely pleased about the sleeping arrangements.I've rated this story M because it has more sex than is usual for me; but frankly I have no idea what the AO3 standards really are, so if you think I've mislabeled it, feel free to discuss that in the comments.





	The Boy In The Boat

July --, 1891.

This is a damnable business. It's damnable to be called up for duty while one is on what may as well be one's honeymoon; it's damnable to be dragged back to the fogs of London when one was embowered in bliss at Walsall; and most of all, it's damnable to be sitting round a bloody capstan talking tactics with a man when all one can think about is the taste of his wife's quim.

No; no. I've written it; I've read it over; I've given it careful thought; and though I embrace all of these sentiments, this is simply not to be my style. It was worth the experiment. The facts of the matter are, however, that I don't like swearing, I loathe the smell of cigars, and I will never cut my hair short again. These trousers are comfortable enough and endlessly convenient but, on me, unaesthetic. Other criteria notwithstanding, I am forced to conclude that as far as the externals go, I'm simply not much of a tom. 

I have now reported the result of my experiment to Mary. She said, you're not a tom, Vi, you're a goose; but you're  _my_ own goose, and that's what matters. On Mary, the trousers are somehow quite bewitching. I mentioned this, earlier today, to Doctor Watson, as we were standing on deck, watching her climb the Jacobs ladder up the mast to the topsail. She's no idea what one does with a sail--she's never been on a boat that wasn't a steam launch--but she's determined as always to be helpful, somehow. "She looks rather well in the trousers, doesn't she?" I said, very rakishly. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said, rather sadly, "She looks well in everything."

And there you have it. One _wants_ to despise him; one _wishes_ him at the end of the universe; one pricks him _ever_ so slightly hoping he might justify one's resentment. And then he speaks, and one wants only to wrap him in a warm blanket and hand him a mug of hot tea. It will be almost as great a relief to me as it will be to him when we finally recover Mr. Holmes. Mary tells me this melancholy has been growing on Doctor Watson for a year now; and of course his illness and everything since have worsened it. She is concerned about him; but long before me, she knew she had to leave him. Her gaiety and vivacity were lost on him, and they would have perished if she had stayed. Everyone knows that Mary is the kindest and most beautiful woman in England. It is a secret known only to myself and to you, diary, that she is also one of the sauciest.

Marriage must be a very solemn thing, for Mary can never speak of her own without becoming very grave. I must own that I too am overawed by what I call, in defiance of the laws of God and man, our marital relations. The sight of Mary's flushed cheeks, bedewed forehead, and heavy-lidded eyes, in those sweet and silent moments just afterward, fills me with a love of such weight and depth that I am astonished that my body can contain it. I would give my life, at such moments, to defend from harm even the smallest, dampest curl of her flaxen hair. But nothing can be more  _delicious_ than her initial playfulness. My desire to please her, consuming as it is, is in no way stronger or greater than her determination to enjoy herself. In one of my moments of reaction, which I  _will_ occasionally have, I asked her whether she does not reproach herself for leaving a good man and a comfortable home to throw herself away on such an abandoned creature as myself. "Never," she said, promptly. "I have done my duty. I am owed some happiness, and so are you."

But we are not in Walsall, all the same. We make all sorts of promises about the work when we join the Society, of course. But whatever Mary says, I know that she is here because she still believes she owes him something. And though I tell myself that I am only here because she is here, I may as well confess to you, diary, that whenever I see Doctor Watson I am filled with an unpleasant sense of my heavy obligations to him. He could have made things very hard for her. He has not. Then, too, I can't help recalling the day that I told him and Mr. Holmes, long ago in that inn at Winchester, about the electric blue dress. Despite the tale I had to unfold, there were no exclamations of disbelief or remarks about my morbid imagination or patronizing observations about the fancies of young girls. They merely looked at each other; and then Mr. Holmes said, "We will accept your theory for the present, Miss Hunter, until we have an opportunity to put it to the test. It fits the facts better than my initial hypothesis." And, after I had murmured a little more in my confusion, Mr. Holmes said, "From the beginning, this insistence upon the electric blue dress has been the most singular feature of the case. I had at first suspected that some noxious property of the aniline dye might be at the bottom of it. But your idea that this particular garment worn by a particular type of young lady exerts a sort of--aphrodisiac--effect upon Mrs. Rucastle provides a simpler and stronger solution not only to this detail, but to the apparently arbitrary demand that you cut your hair short." At that moment, I shuddered, and found I could not stop. Doctor Watson fetched my wrap from the chair on which I had laid it and placed it very gently round my shoulders. This small act of ordinary courtesy made it possible for me to recover my composure, and to play my part in the denouement that followed. 

My gratitude notwithstanding, I wish to goodness that I were in Walsall, safe in bed with Mary, and not trying to write this diary whilst crouched over a barrelhead on the deck of the  _Gilded Lily._  There are two staterooms on this sloop. One is occupied by our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton. Mary insisted that Doctor Watson should have the other. Very well; he needs his rest. The difficulty is that since all three of us, soon after boarding this floating pleasure dome, arrived at the unspoken agreement that we should not attempt to explain ourselves to the Moultons, they naturally expect Mary to share with her husband. I could of course doss in the dining room; but I don't care to, as even at anchor the rocking motion affects my stomach more strongly in the cabin. I decided therefore to bed down on deck, where at least I can feel the salt air on my face while I complain to this most indifferent and unfeeling paper about this damnable situation.

Perhaps, in time, swearing and all the rest of it will begin to come more naturally to me. After all, I've become fairly well acquainted with Mr. Holmes's revolver.

I should review. Every detail of these past few days is seared in my memory now; but what of the years to come? When I'm old and grey, I shall take down this volume from the shelf and read over the details, while Mary dozes gently with her precious head--greying too, perhaps! how amusing to imagine!--resting in my lap. After so many placid years together, will we have forgotten our turbulent beginnings? The whispered tete-a-tetes in the Club room; the flirting over luncheons and teas; the night we sat together before the meeting-room hearth, the embers glowing, our eyes exchanging the confessions we were each afraid to speak? Oh, surely, surely not. But it is just possible that in forty years I will not remember  _everything_ ; and not a moment of this should be lost. I have no doubt that as soon as he feels well enough to do it, Doctor Watson will make a chronicle of this adventure; but it will not be a true or complete one. 

He may not, for instance, record the mingled astonishment and exasperation that he so clearly felt as he watched the  _Gilded Lily_ come into view. Americans, when they have spent real money on something, have no compunctions about letting everyone know it. She is a pleasure-boat but she is also a racing vessel; from the display in the dining room I fancy that she has won every trophy America ever had, and has now come to England to steal all of ours. Mr. Moulton sat in the bow of our dinghy, stroking away in his shirtsleeves, glancing now and then over his shoulder to look at his ship, riding at anchor in the harbor. Doctor Watson stared at the gleaming gunwales, the cherry-red hull, the masts and the spars with their furled sails, and said, "Mrs. Phelps, is this truly _necessary?_ "

It's my private opinion that Harrison had exactly the same thought when she saw all the luggage Doctor Watson had loaded into the rowboat; but she answered him patiently enough. "You could of course approach in some other way," she said. "However, if you go by train you can hardly escape surveillance; and many of the homes you are investigating are much more accessible from the coast than from inland. It is a stroke of great good fortune that Mrs. Moulton"--she said the "missus" with distaste, but the fact is that Mrs. Moulton is not a regular member of the Society--"and her husband happened to be at Richmond for the regatta, and happened to call upon us. It's by no means unusual for pleasure-boats like this to make a tour of the coast of Cornwall, so the  _Gilded Lily_ 's presence can be explained along those lines; and then, too, as everyone knows who she belongs to and where she comes from, our adversaries will not suspect her as part of our investigation--for even if you had summoned her the day you discovered that Mr. Holmes was alive, she could not possibly have reached England by this time."

Mr. Moulton finally pulled the dinghy around, tied up alongside the  _Gilded Lily,_ and would insist on helping all of us onto her deck. We were immediately swooped upon by his wife, who enfolded Doctor Watson in a quite strenuous embrace, entreated all of us to call her Hatty, and immediately began showing us round, talking all the while. Though as unlike my Mary as possible, she is a magnificent creature--long-limbed, statuesque, with lean and muscular arms, a great quantity of curling tresses, and a sun-browned, wide-mouthed face. I don't think I have ever seen anyone as  _healthy_ as the former Hatty Doran. I don't mean that she's stout, though I would also not call her willowy. I mean that she looks as if she has eaten beef every night of her life and washed it down with milk and cream. She has adopted 'rational dress'--a shirtwaist and bodice over enormous trousers gathered at the ankles--and somehow manages to carry it off. She fairly glows with animal spirits--and glows the brighter the closer she is to her husband. This is Mr. Francis Hay Moulton, or Frank as she calls him; and they are utterly besotted with each other. They have been living on this yacht for six months. We know--because Hattie  _would_ show us--that within this wooden shell they have gathered all the necessaries of life and many of its luxuries. The staircase leading down from the deck to the cabin level is faced with marble. The staterooms have stained glass windows. There is silver and china in the dining room. The larder is narrow, but holds an apparently inexhaustible bounty. There is an entire compartment in the hold dedicated to the storage of their diving equipment. Yes, diary: Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton regularly strap canisters of compressed oxygen to themselves, attach artificial webs to their feet, throw themselves into the ocean and then dive--on purpose--into the deep, sustaining themselves with their artificial air. They say there's nothing quite like it. I say--only to you, diary, and maybe once or twice to Mary--that this is a pastime for people with more money than sense. What is even more senseless is that they travel with no servants. They had a crew with them crossing the ocean; but they are all enjoying themselves in London until the time comes to return. Since their arrival, the Moultons sail the boat themselves, and navigate by themselves, and cook and wash up by themselves. Hattie admitted that when they go ashore, they stay in hotels and are waited on hand and foot. But the sailboat, evidently, is a little floating America, all self-reliance and republicanism--all in the midst of violent ostentation.

Round the capstan, we all planned our adventure. Our most recent intelligence from Carfax is that Holy Peters and his wife arrived in Brest yesterday, and that her little troupe of sea urchins, as she calls them, have reported him down at the docks, inquiring about ships. It is Harrison's opinion that they probably found one, and that in the morning they will make their crossing. The location shows that our hypothesis was at least partly correct; Brest is almost due south of Plymouth, and quite convenient to Cornwall. There are six vacant summer houses that I have identified as having possibly been let to Holy Peters, running from a little hamlet to the southwest of Plymouth all the way down to one in Penzance. At first light we will set sail for Plymouth. Once we arrive, Hatty and Frank will drop anchor and spend the day doing some public and very noticeable holiday-making, while Doctor Watson conceals himself below decks and Mary and I, from a distance, will pass (in our sailors' trousers and blouses) for the ship's crew. After nightfall, Hatty will remain on board ship while Frank rows us to shore. We will slip out and do our reconnaissance. If we discover Holy Peters, the Fraser woman, or Mr. Holmes, we will either pounce at once, or retreat to the ship to plan our assault. 

For some time after Harrison left, Doctor Watson sat lost in thought. Then he stood up to watch Mary make her first climb up the mast, followed by Hatty, and I made my little remark about the trousers. After some time, he turned to me and spoke again.

"Miss Hunter," he said. "I know it isn't customary for Society members to go about armed. On the whole I think it the best policy. But I am familiar with Holy Peters and his tactics; and I would like to show you how to use a revolver."

He was, I think, gratified to see me blanching slightly. "But Doctor Watson--I--I've never been on a hunt. I've never touched a firearm, I've never fired one. Do you really think that now is the time for me to begin? How could we possibly practice shooting without attracting the attention of the police?"

"I didn't say I was going to teach you to shoot," he said, turning one of his many traveling cases onto its back and opening the clasps. "I said I was going to show you how to use a revolver. It's not the same thing."

He lifted two smaller cases out of his traveling bag and laid them on deck. They were both made of wood and trimmed with leather. One of them was highly ornamented and in pristine condition; the other was bound with plain straps which were stained with water, and the wood was scarred and discolored. He opened the more battered one. Inside, nestling in a lined compartment, was a black revolver.

"This," he said, gesturing at it, "is my revolver. When it's not on my person, it's kept locked in this case. It's usually loaded. Please do not ever touch this revolver."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Thank you, Miss Hunter." He locked the case and pushed it gently away from him. He opened the prettier case and lifted the lid. Inside was a gleaming steel-gray revolver, which he lifted gently. "Now. This is Holmes's revolver." He pressed on the round bulge near the handle, which slid out. It was a kind of metal cylinder with six empty cylinders bored into it. "It's never loaded, though you should always make sure of that first thing." He snapped the cylinder back into place. "Here, let me see you do it."

I took the thing up, gingerly. I popped out the large cylinder, poked a finger into each of the six empty holes, and replaced the cylinder. 

"Why is it never loaded?" I couldn't help asking. 

Doctor Watson took a somewhat exasperated breath. "It's a condition of his lease."

"Since when?"

"Since the day he decided to drill a 'V.R.' into the sitting room wall with bullet holes."

I blinked. "I never...noticed..."

"No, you wouldn't have, because we had to have a plasterer in and the wallpaper replaced, at our own expense."

"Really," I said, with a smile. 

"The fact of the matter is," Doctor Watson went on, rather warming to the topic, "that under ideal conditions, with a stationary target, Holmes is quite accurate even at a distance. However, when it comes to hitting a moving target in the heat of action, there is no substitute for experience; and he doesn't have much."

Doctor Watson looked away from me at that moment. We were both, of course, thinking of the mastiff. I silently thanked my stars that Doctor Watson had the requisite experience. 

"I have even less," I said, a trifle anxiously.

"Yes, but the point of carrying a revolver, Miss Hunter," he said, "is precisely not to fire it. Its true value lies in its ability to persuade your opponent not to resist you. They see the revolver; they see you are prepared to use it; ninety nine out of a hundred times they surrender. Point the barrel of a revolver at a man's face, or clap the mouth of it to a man's temple, and you may as well have him by the testicles."

"Doctor WATSON!" I exclaimed.

He was instantly mortified. He had momentarily forgotten that he was speaking to a lady. He muttered a curse and covered his mouth with one hand. I burst out laughing. He could not help following suit. What Mary made of it, from her lofty perch, I do not know; but when the hilarity was over, we returned to the lesson with renewed energy. 

"But," he said, raising his forefinger didactically, "you must handle the revolver with absolute confidence. You must act  _as if_ you have been shooting all your life, _as if_ the gun is loaded, and  _as if_ you are ready at any moment to do murder. That is what what Holmes excels at; and that is what you will learn to do now."

He popped out the cylinder again, showed me the empty holes again, and then snapped it back in. "There, you see? No bullets, no powder. It's impossible for you to hurt me with this, unless you bring it down  _very_ hard on my skull." He presented it to me. "Let's see you draw it."

"Where do I..." I began.

"Do those trousers have pockets?"

I located one and put the revolver in it.

"Now, practice taking it out and pointing it at me. Feet wide, both arms extended, both hands holding it. Quick as you can. Go."

I am grateful that Hatty found Mary something to do with the topsail, because it seemed a long time before I could accomplish even that much. But by degrees, I gained the necessary familiarity and confidence. Doctor Watson is a very patient teacher, and responds to one's mistakes with a bracing mixture of sarcasm and good humor. Mary, once she descended, was highly entertained, especially when we got to practicing what Doctor Watson calls Grappling. This is what happens when one has, as Hatty unfailingly puts it, 'got the jump' on the miscreant and can approach from behind. One arm round the throat, one hand puts the gun to his temple. Hatty had numerous helpful suggestions to offer. She and Frank, being Americans, are themselves always armed; and I am sure their guns are loaded.

After all that exercise, I had quite an appetite. Dinner was spectacular. "I've never forgotten the wedding breakfast Mr. Holmes gave us," said Hatty, as we sat down to all those riches. "I just wish he could be here now. But he will be soon, won't he, Frank?"

"By jingo he will," Frank called back, from the head of the table. "I don't know where this Holy Peters cut his teeth--"

"Australia," Doctor Watson put in.

"Well, Australia has turned out some tough characters," Frank conceded. "But with Yankee ingenuity and Yankee spunk, we--"

Doctor Watson turned beet red. Mary nearly choked on her pate. I swallowed my champagne only after a struggle. Hatty just patted his hand soothingly and said, "It means something different over here, darling."

"Ah well," Frank said, good-naturedly. "I guess I've put my foot in it again. Common condition with me, isn't it, Hatty?"

"You're too hard on yourself, Frank," she said.

"But the point is," Frank said, addressing us in general now. "We've got God and the right on our side, and what have they got? Some half-pint second-rate Moriarty. No ma'am, don't you worry your pretty little head about it." This was addressed to Mary, in what I considered an overly familiar tone. "Bet you we've busted Mr. Holmes out of there by sundown tomorrow. And then all this cloak and dagger business will be over and you'll finally have your husband back!"

Frank laughed heartily at his own joke. Hatty laughed along with him. Doctor Watson looked down at his untasted grouse. Mary took his hand, and said, "Yes, and so will John."

Frank and Hatty laughed even more uproariously. They evidently thought it was a slip of the tongue. Nobody disabused them. The conversation turned to other channels. 

Later that night, while Mary was in the stateroom changing into her nightclothes and I was on deck, leaning on the gunwale and trying not to think about Mary and her nightclothes, I heard a soft little cough in the vicinity of my right shoulder. I turned to see Doctor Watson, hatless and in his shirtsleeves, standing next to me, also staring over the gunwale at the glow of London, off in the distance.

"Doctor Watson," I said. "I'm sorry about..."

I gestured, helplessly.

"Don't trouble yourself over it," he said. "They mean well. They don't know; they would likely not understand."

He sighed. 

"Miss Hunter," he said. "I don't know if I'm doing right by speaking to you about this. I mistrust my own motives. But in the absence of a second opinion, I can only subscribe to the philosophy that honesty is the best policy."

I felt a bit of a chill. I turned my gaze back to the bright haze in the distance, made up of all those glowing streetlamps and shop windows.

"When we were first married," he said, "I told Mary about all of my cases. I mean the true stories, not the fictions I publish. I didn't imagine she would ever meet most of the women involved in them."

"Including mine?" 

"It's a remarkable thing," he said ruefully. "But even though it was something that had actually  _happened_ to a woman, for a long time I thought it would be wrong to discuss it with a woman. But then I told myself that was ridiculous."

"So you told her about the electric blue dress," I said. "And the coil of hair, and the...mastiff."

He nodded. "I didn't want you...not to know that she knew. It seemed wrong that I should know that she knows, but that you shouldn't."

"Don't alarm yourself," I replied. "I told her the whole story myself, soon after I met her."

I knew somehow that she would listen to me, and that she would believe me. I didn't have to say this. In that way, he knew her as well as I did.

"Have you read Smith's report?" I asked him.

"I haven't."

"It's very thorough," I said.

We stood in silence for a moment.

"Miss Hunter, I have always been in complete agreement with you," he said. "I spoke with Holmes about it, many times--"

"I know, Doctor Watson. Mary's told me."

"I couldn't persuade him to pursue it," Doctor Watson said, apologetically. "He's not a reformer, Miss Hunter. Detection, for him, is first a science, then an art, and only incidentally a public service. He doesn't let these cases...haunt him."

He shook his head. The precise way in which he shook his head recalled to me, vividly, that train journey back to London. Holmes had left the local police in possession of the wounded Mr. Rucastle, the pallid and terror-stricken Mrs. Rucastle, the drunken butler Toller, the corpse of the mastiff, and the remains of my immediate predecessor.

I said, "Smith has discovered that, before me, Westaway had placed  _three_ governesses with the Rucastles in the past five years. All for enormous fees, and enormous commissions. We know what became of the third. Nobody has been able to trace the first or second."

He shook his head, sadly, again. "Well, this is why Mary founded the Society."

He reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a somewhat battered silver cigarette case. He opened it and offered it to me; I declined. He extracted one, tucked it into his mouth, and lit it. He drew the smoke in, slowly, gratefully.

"I've never thanked either of you," I said.

"For what?"

"For believing me." 

Doctor Watson inhaled again, deeply, and released the smoke.

"It's just as Holmes said," he finally remarked. "The fact that the Queen refuses to acknowledge something doesn't mean it's not real."

"It was..." We were in deep waters now; but I felt I had swum out rather too far to turn back. "It was quite confusing at first, after I met Mary. To be...to have...when..."

Doctor Watson, with some impatience, shook his head. He took a breath, held it a moment, and then finally blurted it out.

"It's not the deed that matters, Miss Hunter. It's the doer, and the doing of it."

He snatched the cigarette from his lips and tossed it impatiently into the ocean. 

"Mrs. Rucastle was a depraved and cruel woman. Whether she was made that way by her even more depraved and cruel husband, or whether their shared cruelty and depravity drew them together, only God knows. Thank God you saw the danger you were in. Thank God we got you out before things became serious."

Before anything irreparable had been done to me. Before I knew too many of their shared and foul secrets. Before I was fed to the mastiff.

"There are ten other clients on Westaways' books with highly suspicious histories," I said. "Smith has traced some of the women who worked for them. Their stories are terrible. But none of their stories are as bad as mine could have been, if you and Mr. Holmes hadn't believed me when you did."

In the darkness before me, I saw Mrs. Rucastle's ghostly pallor, her weak blue eyes, her lank hair. I felt her gaze lingering on the bodice of that electric-blue dress. I felt her hand resting on my shoulder, on my arm, round my waist, as she gave me some trivial direction about an unimportant task, or took a turn with me in the garden. I felt Mr. Rucastle watching her watch me. I felt horror, all around me, all the time--even before I found the coil of hair locked in my bureau drawer. 

"Goodnight, Miss Hunter," he said, brokenly. "I appreciate your kindness to me, and to him. I hope to God we find him soon."

He left me, quickly, and took refuge in the cabin. It occurred to me only at that moment that Mr. Holmes is, somewhere, locked up in a little room like that one on the third storey at Copper Beeches. For the first time, I felt real pity for him, and for Doctor Watson. I am free; Mary is free. But Doctor Watson will not be free until Mr. Holmes is free; and we seem almost as far from that as ever.

Hatty has fixed up a really quite nice little berth for me in the shelter of the bridge deck. I crawled into it, wrapping the blankets round me, and settled down to wait out the night. I couldn't imagine I would sleep much. Smooth and pleasant as the boards were to the touch, they were quite hard, and the blankets didn't cushion them much. Besides, if I closed my eyes, all I could see was Mary in that white nightdress of hers, as I had seen her on that fateful night at the Club, standing in the doorway of my little Club guest room.  _I can't help it,_ she said, gliding in and dropping to her knees by the side of the bed, for all the world as if she were about to say her prayers. I had prepared a very noble and self-sacrificing speech for just such an occasion. I got two words of it out before she kissed me. I did not deliver the rest.

So I opened my eyes. I turned my head away from the wall supporting the bridge deck, hoping to find the stars.

What I saw was Mary. She was still wearing her sailor's togs--the high-collared white shirt under the blue blouse, the close-fitting blue trousers. She dropped to one knee beside me.

"Mary," I whispered. "What about--"

Mary braced herself on both hands and leaned over me. Her eyes were large, soft, and dark; but not without merriment.

"If it's the Moultons you're worried about," she said, "they are fully, and  _loudly_ , occupied with each other."

The very first time she kissed me, we both rushed in so fast our heads nearly collided. We've learned the opening steps of the dance now. Our mouths meet softly. Then they open wider, our tongues search deeper, as I draw her down onto me. She kisses me as if she wants to devour me; I kiss her as if I cannot be devoured fast enough. We tangle and entwine. She grips one of my thighs in both of hers. I slip one hand around the back of her head. With the other I scrabble at the collar of her shirt. It would be easier if I could see the damned fastenings, but I will die if I stop kissing her. _Somehow_ , I manage to open that white shirt at the front. No corset tonight, thank God; just her own smooth skin, warming under my touch. I cradle her breast in my hand; it takes shape, the nipple rises. I would tongue it, but tonight I can't stop kissing her. I can't, now she's started to make those soft little sounds. She's breathing them into me and I gasp after them, gulping them down as they grow stronger and lower and rougher. I draw my head back; hers plunges forward; she can't stop kissing me. It's the salt air or the trousers or the stars or I don't know what. She cant' stop kissing me and I can't stop either. We're drinking the milk of paradise and the thing about that is, the moment you stop you forget how it tastes.

She rolls onto her back, pulling me on top of her, and with the hand that's not twining in my hair she reaches for her own trousers. I don't know how she gets them open; I don't care; she guides my hand down over the curve of her belly and into her drawers and over the rasp of the coiled and slightly coarse hair that protects the cave of wonders. I venture in, slowly, assessing. But caution's wasted tonight. She's not just ready, she's positively impatient. Every leaf in this grove is wet and waiting; all her blood beats inside this glistening, tender pearl.

Oh, I'll _never_ get it down on paper; I don't know why I'm trying. It's only that I can't bear for it all to disappear. It's ridiculous, crouching over this barrelhead in the cold, in the dying light of this lantern, gabbling out like the ancient mariner,  _There was a ship..._

There  _was_  a ship, and once on its deck lay two young women, as tightly entwined as flesh allows, and the one that is me was utterly undone. Utterly undone, as I hold Mary's second throbbing heart in my hand. I am utterly undone to know how hotly and powerfully and desperately I am  _wanted._ I am undone, and she does not stop kissing me. She wraps her legs around my hips, traps my arm between our bellies, thrusts her hips toward me, working with my rhythm. She's never come from my hand alone. But the world is new tonight. She does not stop kissing me, and my hand tightens on her and her legs tighten on mine and she does. She _does_.

And after the paroxysms, the muffled cries, the print of her teeth on my bare shoulder, the clinging together in the darkness as her breath finally slows down and her eyelids flutter--after  _all that_ \--to hear her say she'd better get back to the stateroom before dawn, and to know in my heart that in fact she had better, and to let her go, and to hear her whisper in my ear,  _till next time..._ I reproached her for leaving me with idle hands, which everyone knows are the devil's playthings. She suggested I might occupy them by finally making an entry in that diary she'd given me. I groaned; but she rummaged in the bag and brought it to me, and promised she would stay for a moment longer if I began. And with her nestled against me, on the top of the bulkhead, I wrote:  _This is a damnable business._

Well, she is down in that stateroom now; and it is very cold on deck, and the lamp is very low now. So perhaps one can pardon me when I say, once again and with feeling: This is a damnable business.

Nobody taught me Greek. I am teaching myself, up in Walsall, during those few moments not occupied by marital activity. I want my girls to know it, and Latin too. My grasp of Sappho is tenuous at best; but it is, I am discovering, some comfort to be able to curse Aphrodite in my own tongue. Ah, Aphrodite, don't be angry. Pity me; pity all of us--the doctor hugging himself in his unrumpled bed, the detective alone somewhere in the dark. Send us a fair wind, and mild seas, and the luck of St. Anthony, that we may find him in the first place we look.

THE END

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like I couldn't introduce an f/f romance and not show it at least _once_ from the inside. Behold the result. If you enjoyed watching Violet Hunter make love to another canon woman, you might also enjoy [An Ideal Husband](https://archiveofourown.org/works/742708), in which Violet falls hard for Irene Adler while she's playing Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde's play of the same name. The Violet of this series is very different and, I think, a little more realistic and period-appropriate. Thanks to Sarah Waters for writing _Tipping the Velvet,_ from which I've taken some of the necessary vocabulary, and to Samuel Taylor Coleridge for writing "Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan."
> 
>  
> 
> Also, Radclyffe Hall, if you're out there listening: I fixed the last 100 pages of _The Well of Loneliness_ for you. Hope you like it.


End file.
